The Puppet Blaster
The Puppet Blaster is the eighth episode of Power Rangers: Zeo. Synopsis King Mondo turns Puppetman, the robot companion of Captain Pete, into a monster that can make little kids misbehaving servants for the Machine Empire. All because, as he says, "I hate the laughter of human children!". Plot The episode begins at the Captain Pete show, playing in the Youth Center, where Pete introduces everyone to his sidekick and best friend Puppetman. The kids and parents say hi back to the latter. Cast *Jason David Frank as Tommy Oliver (Zeo Ranger V Red) *Johnny Yong Bosch as Adam Park (Zeo Ranger IV Green) *Steve Cardenas as Rocky DeSantos (Zeo Ranger III Blue) *Nakia Burrise as Tanya Sloan (Zeo Ranger II Yellow) *Catherine Sutherland as Katherine "Kat" Hillard (Zeo Ranger I Pink) *David Yost as Billy Cranston *Paul Schrier as Farkas "Bulk" Bulkmeier *Jason Narvy as Eugene "Skull" Skullovitch *Gregg Bullock as Lt. Jerome Stone *Richard Genelle as Ernie *David Fielding as Zordon (face) *Bob Manahan as Zordon (voice) *Donene Kistler as Alpha 5 *Richard Steven Horvitz as Alpha 5 (voice) (as Richard Wood) *David Stenstrom as King Mondo (voice) *Alex Borstein as Queen Machina (voice) *Barbara Goodson as Prince Sprocket (voice) and Orbus (voice) *Oliver Page as Klank *Bruce Block as Captain Pete *Paul Pistore as Puppetman (voice) Errors *Puppetman says that today’s secret word is “Power Rangers”, but “Power Rangers” is two words, not one. Maybe he was just being silly. Notes *Debut of the Defender Wheel. *Arnie is the first of Jerome Stone's relatives to appear in PR. The second is Jenny Hunter. *Several canned sound effects play continuously throughout the "Captain Pete" scenes at the Youth Center (even the scenes where the kids trash the place); this makes it difficult to understand what any of the characters are saying. The only exception is when the Rangers are morphed and in the Ohranger footage. *First time the Zeo Power Pods in sword mode are used in battle. *The Zeo Megazord fight was used in a PC game Power Rangers Zeo PowerActive Words. *The puppet robot Puppetman throws water on one of the Cogs, shorting him out, as opposed to the last episode where several of them traveled through a small pond and had no problems with it. *Captain Pete is a parody of, and tribute to, children's television hosts, such as Captain Kangaroo (with whom he shares a title and theming), Soupy Sales, Pinky Lee and Pee-wee Herman (the latter was played by comedian and actor Paul Reubens, who was taking a much-needed sabbatical from playing the character at the time due to not only burnout from playing the character full-time on Playhouse, but also due to negative media attention following a minor scandal in 1991). One of the elements of Pete's show, the "secret word", is taken directly from Pee-wee's Playhouse, but rather than screaming, a bucket of cold water, a banana cream pie or confetti is thrown at the person that says the secret word. Like Pee-Wee with Conky 2000 and Magic Screen, the Captain has a robot friend of his own that he loves and cares about - the Puppetman. This is not only confirmed when Pete introduces him, but when he runs away then hides in fear over his friend's transformation. He even softly says to himself "Oh no!". Another of the elements of Pete's show is pieing, popularized by Mr. Sales. **Pete's style of comedy and children's show hosting is very similar to Pee-wee's. For instance, he refers to the viewing audience (even the parents and the Rangers) as "boys and girls" during his introduction, and has similar mannerisms to Pee-wee too. **Puppetman, in turn, is a loving homage to Conky 2000, who always provided the secret word(s) on Playhouse and is one of Herman's closest friends. See Also (fight footage) Category:Zeo Category:Episode